August 04, 2008
A Muxtape for Summer
I’ve updated my muxtape, though not with particularly summeresque songs. There are three tracks in there featuring Togawa Jun, who I was extremely lucky to see live recently, and to be able to buy a copy of one of the limited edition Togawa Legend 3 disc sets that was released a few days after that show. That’s been sustaining my interest, as well as Apogee and Perigee, a very rare disc featuring some wonderful YMO-side-project-styled 80’s J-pop including some tracks helmed by Jun, which I was able to find at Janis–where else? And, yeah, so there are tracks in there too that have nothing to do with Togawa Jun. Anyhow, have a listen, and if someone out there enjoys the music as much as I do, then it’s worth it.
Posted by shane at 12:24 AM
July 26, 2008
My Dreams Come True
Yesterday one of my recent fantasies of getting to perform on LCD screen came true! Somehow we hooked one up for the Tokyo.Ten live show. Thanks Anthony from W+K and Telmic. Looking back at the photos from this show it looked like a lot of fun, but actually on the day I was two days almost without sleep and with one of the biggest headaches of my life. To the point where I was getting seriously worried about brain damage. I stuck some photos on the W+K blog too.
Posted by shane at 03:22 AM
July 14, 2008
Back Travelogue 1 – Paris
I intended to blog my European trip, but instead, I delayed so long that I ended up never writing anything for it. It turns out that when you’re on the longest summer vacation of the last 4-5 years of your life (pathetic, yes) the last thing you are motivated to do is open up your laptop and organize digital photos, etc. Some from Paris, after the fact:
Posted by shane at 11:02 AM
July 08, 2008
Tokyo.Ten live show coming up 07.24
Official PR blurb:
W+K東京LABは2003年の立ち上げ以来、HIFANA、高木正勝、AFRA、DJ Uppercutの作品を、ほぼすべてのタイトルで、DVD＋CDという形態でリリースしつづけている。ハイブリッドをコンセプトに、さまざまな要素を融合させた音楽をリリースするだけにとどまらず、早くから音楽を軸としたオーディオビジュアル体験を創出することに着目。今、ここ東京でしか生まれない表現を追求しつづけてきた。レーベル設立5周年、記念すべき10枚目のリリースはDVD+BOOK+BLOG で構成された“TOKYO.点”。このリリースをセレブレイトするライブイベントを、LIQUIDROOMで開催する。ここで、新しい体験を垣間見ることができる。ここから、新しい旅がはじまる。つぎの“点”へ。
Since W+K Tokyo Lab was launched in 2003, we’ve continued to produce CD+DVD releases for our artists Hifana, Takagi Masakatsu, Afra, and DJ Uppercut. Embracing the concept of hybrid, all our releases have been experiments in audio-visual expression and beyond, while striving to create a new experience that could only be born in Tokyo. Now that we’ve come 5 years along in this journey, this month we present our tenth release, a DVD+Book+Blog, called Tokyo.点, and to celebrate it, we’ll hold our biggest and best party at Liquidroom, featuring live performances by five of our artists. Come and share this experience with us as we kick off a new phase in the journey of W+K Tokyo Lab.
Tokyo.Ten : Live
W+K Tokyo Lab 5th Anniversary
2008/07.24/THU
Liquidroom
OPEN : 18:00 START : 19:00
Ticket : ￥3,000 (tax in, no drink)
Live Performances by:
Hifana
DJ Uppercut
Afra & The Incredible Beatbox Band
Jemapur
鎮座DOPENESS + Kochitola Haguretic Emcee’s
Thanks to our sponsors:
Amana Group, Claska, and special visual technology partner, Crescent.
Seriously though, this is gonna be an awesome event. The first time since our founding that all the lab artists (well, unfortunately one couldn’t join actually) will be performing together in one show. We’re planning some cool visual stuff for the show as well. Come check it!
Posted by shane at 03:21 PM
July 04, 2008
Gaming Lifestyle from Paris
I’ve been waiting for this half my life. In fact, one big project I did while studying graphic design was to create a concept for an imaginary magazine and design it. I came up with a magazine called Introvert, that was supposed to connect gaming to a broader context of aesthetics and the interactive arts. I remember feeling so passionately at the time that this magazine absolutely needed to exist. I think that was around 2003 or so.
Well, I was recently in Paris, and Digiki happened to have the first issue of a curious stack of glossy bound pages that a friend of his was involved in creating. It’s called Amusement, and as far as I can tell, it’s very close to the videogame magazine I imagined that I’d be salivating over, and more.
Someone finally did it. Fuck yes. These people realize that gaming is a major pop culture event, to be reckoned alongside fashion, and music, and all those other things that make the shiny young people in this world sparkle in the way that they do. But more importantly, they did not merely realize this fact, but acted on it. In fact, games are the tastiest pop cultural morsel of this century, and its about time someone acknowledged it from a bold new journalistic angle. The music industry is in the toilet, games have been generating more revenue than the movie industry for years, and keen consumers must be aware that while Hollywood is keen to recycle the same formulas, gaming’s key innovations are still to be discovered, the best new experiences still to be had. So can we please let gaming take its place on the world stage of cool already, where it so rightfully belongs.
Amusement seems to be a bold step in this direction, and a quick look at the intro animation on their website will reveal as much. From my estimation you’ll be as likely to see art or fashion inspired by gaming culture (Space Invader graffiti), as interviews with creative motherfuckers who play games (did I see Sebastien Tellier?), as you would an actual game review. I cannot confirm all my assumptions, because I don’t have a copy of Amusement in front of me, nor could I read the French, even if I did. But as you can probably tell, just the knowledge that it exists is inspiring to me. We can only hope this is the start of something much bigger.
Posted by shane at 02:20 AM
In Eyescream This Month
I already wrote about this on the Tokyo Lab blog, so I guess I’d better give it some kind of personal spin here. The funny thing about this interview was, that I thought it was going to be about the Tokyo.Ten project that’s ongoing this month, with a bunch of events, activity, and the release of our first book, containing all our best work up to now. It would an opportune time to mention any of these things, but then it turns out, oh, surprise, you’re going to be in the MAC issue, and talk about Apple. Steve is such a fucking genius that creative people and magazines and organizations are doing the best advertising for him voluntarily. I can imagine now, I’m in a Google Japan meeting, where we’re pitching an idea of doing an issue of some magazine all about Google, interviewing all kinds of creative, internet-savvy, famous blogger types to talk about how they use and love Google. For that issue, they’d probably have to pay though.
Posted by shane at 01:59 AM
June 29, 2008
Tokyo.Ten Party
I came jet-lagged fresh from three flights, Berlin to Paris, Paris to Seoul, Seoul to Tokyo, two airport buses and various trains, in total over 24 hours of constant travel the previous day, into a long sleep into Tokyo’s Friday afternoon, waking up into the final preparations for the Tokyo.Ten opening party that evening. It was successful beyond my imagination; probably the best party I’ve seen associated with our office. Tons of people, lots of connections and exchange, and seemingly a genuine interest in the book, artworks, and videos themselves. If you missed the party, you can of course still visit the exhibition which will be ongoing until 7.27.
The setup:
The party, ground floor:
In the gallery, 2nd floor (there is another gallery on the 7th, which I didn’t shoot in):
The Bohla watch continues to generate conversation the world over, this time, with Alvin and Maki
People:
Mark, always with his fish-eye equipped
Maki and Kiyo-chan
W+K girls, Lina and Mai-chan
Jemapur, our next artist for Lab, was one of the DJs tonight, with WOOG and Uppercut.
Hutch, AD of W+K whose work is also included in Tokyo.Ten
Shingo, aka Merce Death, AD of W+K who also performed live
Woog and I
No forgetting though, this is a Tokyo Lab party, a record label after all, and the musical showcase is saved for another party on the 24th. And I fear there will be a whole lot of preparation to do between now and then.
The book itself will be out from 7.01, and I would recommend picking it up at Roppongi’s ACB, where there will be a sort of Tokyo.Ten takeover in the store. I found some nice photos of the book on CBCNET (where did they get those?)!
I almost forgot, +cruz, Woog, Sun An, and myself will do an exhibition of personal work starting next weekend also at Claska. As usual, the info is over at wktokyolab.com/ten. Busy days ahead, not even thinking yet about the status of ‘real’ client projects.
Posted by shane at 04:50 AM
June 15, 2008
From Podcast to Muxtape
Pardon my sudden intrusion into this long and dull period of silence, but I’ve decided to start using muxtape. I’ve found it a bit buggy, but incredibly tasteful, and really the bugs are forgivable given that it’s been masterminded entirely by a single young developer. Anyhow, my muxtape for now will be the new spiritual home of my deceased podcast, so for anyone who enjoyed that, please give it a listen. Muxtape allows you only 12 songs at a time, but luckily I’m the kind of person who often finds constraints liberating, especially in a creative sense. As the mix changes, you won’t be able to listen to the previous tracks, so if you are interested, better take note. I’ll continue to try and focus mainly on Japanese music, anywhere from sugary stupid pop songs to the proudly obtuse and obscure. Credit for the Hi Posi track in the current mix goes to Digiki, who left it on my hard drive during our Drag+Drop production process. Listen here.
Posted by shane at 04:15 PM
June 04, 2008
Brand Tags
Brand Tags is an interesting site that gives a fascinating picture of the free associations people have with a number of brands. Some of the biggest associations for Nike: Sports, Sweatshop, Child Labor. For Apple: Awesome, Innovative, Expensive. Suggestion to the creator of this site: Think about implementing a system that groups those tags together that are essentially the same meaning. For example, Apple has an similarly heavy tag for both the words innovation and innovative. If both were recognized as essentially one tag, a more accurate reaction could be garnered.
Posted by shane at 07:39 PM
Brother’s Firefight
Posted by shane at 07:36 PM
May 10, 2008
Hifana on French Television
I can’t understand a word of it, of course.
Posted by shane at 01:09 AM
Just. Can’t. Resist.
Posted by shane at 12:59 AM
May 07, 2008
New Interpol Video is ‘Visually Programmed’
An interesting video with a heavy use of programming, courtesy of Aaron Koblin. What is most interesting to me in this situation is that although there seems to be a trend emerging of music videos made with code, it has been confined mostly to individuals doing it with a very DIY spirit (ie unofficially borrowing music, and just posting the video for their friends). This one however is maybe the most blatant example I can think of of the trend crossing into the mainstream with a high profile band and big visibility. Could this momentum continue to explode? There certainly seems to be no shortage of ‘data artists’ who are popping up in ever greater numbers. The niche and minutiae of coding music videos can actually be traced very well by following just one man’s blog: Flight 404.
Posted by shane at 04:31 AM
May 06, 2008
Maledict Car by Kosai Sekine
Kosai Sekine directed the newest music video for our newest artist, Jemapur, and it looks great. The track is called Maledict Car, and below is a teaser of it. The full video will be included in Tokyo Lab’s upcoming DVD+book, Tokyo.Ten which is coming later this year. More info on the blog.
Posted by shane at 03:56 PM